Perfection Is a Quiet Thing
For three hundred and twelve years, he sat.
Snow fell.
The snow melted.
Trees grew.
Trees died.
Dynasties likely rose and fell.
He did not check.
Breathing was enough.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Qi flowed without obstruction.
No deviation in the meridians.
No imbalance in the dantian.
No heat.
No cold.
No stray thought.
He had refined every technique he ever learned.
Then refined the refinements.
Then simplified them until nothing unnecessary remained.
A sword form with no wasted motion.
A step that did not move the dust.
A punch that would not ripple the air unless he wished it.
He tested himself one last time.
He gathered qi.
Not violently.
Not arrogantly either.
Just fully.
The mountain trembled beneath him.
Clouds tore open above him.
The spiritual field bent outward in a perfect circle.
He waited.
Heavenly tribulation should descend.
There should be lightning.
Judgment.
Ascension.
Nothing came.
The clouds slowly stitched themselves back together.
The wind returned like nothing had happened.
He lowered his hand.
"…I see how it is."
He checked his body again.
Flawless.
If there was a flaw, he could not detect it.
If there was a higher realm, it did not answer him.
He reached perfection.
Complete.
And completely uneventful.
He stood.
The stone beneath him cracked from the simple act of weight returning to gravity.
He brushed snow from his sleeve.
No one was left on the mountain who remembered his name.
That was fine.
Names were temporary.
He took one step down the slope.
Then another.
After a century of stillness, walking felt almost nostalgic.
Birds scattered when he passed.
Animals did not approach.
The world made room.
He descended for hours.
The forest thinned.
The air changed.
There was a smell he did not recognize.
Burnt.
Metallic.
Strange.
He stopped.
Ahead of him stretched a wide black river.
Perfectly flat.
Shining.
Not water.
Not stone either.
He crouched.
Touched it.
It was hard.
Strange.
He pressed slightly.
It dented.
He pressed a little more.
A sharp sound echoed behind him.
He turned.
A metal beast rushed toward him on round black legs.
No qi signature.
No breathing.
No blood.
Yet moving fast.
It screamed as it stopped just before him.
The front of the beast dipped.
A human leaned out.
"What are you doing? Are you out of your damn mind?!"
He stared at the beast.
No horses.
No reins.
No spirit binding.
"How does it move?"
The human blinked.
"…Gas."
He walked around it slowly.
The surface reflected his face faintly.
He placed his palm on its front.
Qi slipped in gently.
The beast coughed.
Then died.
Smoke rose.
The human inside shrieked.
"My engine! What did you do?!"
Engine.
He memorized the word.
"I examined it."
"You broke it!"
He tilted his head.
"It was unstable."
The human grabbed a small glowing rectangle and began shouting into it.
He froze slightly.
Communication device.
But there was no qi inside it.
He leaned closer.
The human flinched away.
"Don't touch me!"
He sniffed the air.
There were faint threads of organized energy.
Not natural.
Structured.
Layered.
The ground vibrated again.
More metal beasts arrived.
Uniformed humans stepped out.
Matching clothing.
Disciplined posture.
Weak bodies.
But trained.
Interesting.
One approached carefully.
"Sir, step away from the vehicle."
Vehicle.
Another word stored.
He studied the uniform.
Emblems.
Hierarchy.
Not sect robes.
But organized.
"Which sect governs this territory?"
"…What?"
"Your formation is loose," he continued calmly. "Your breathing is too shallow. Your killing intent is barely condensed into those small black objects."
Several of them raised the black objects.
Weapons.
He felt the tension tighten.
One fired.
The sound cracked the air.
The projectile struck his forehead.
Flattened.
Dropped to the ground.
Silence swallowed the road.
He blinked once.
Picked up the deformed metal.
"It is quite efficient."
The officers stared at him like he had split the sky.
He crushed the bullet between two fingers absentmindedly.
It turned to powder.
Their fear thickened.
But beneath their fear…
He felt it.
Very faint.
Very controlled.
Qi.
Not from them.
From the distance.
From ahead.
He lifted his gaze.
Beyond the trees, beyond the slight rise in land
Glass towers pierced the sky.
Dozens.
No.
Hundreds.
Reflecting sunlight like blades.
Between them, faint lines of energy.
Not wild like mountain veins.
Not chaotic like battlefield remnants.
Networked.
Regulated.
Disciplined.
His eyes sharpened.
The murim did not decline.
This was evolution.
He stepped forward.
The officers retreated instinctively.
One reached for his arm again.
The officer left the ground.
Flew backward ten meters.
Rolled.
Groaned.
He did not look at him.
"They are fragile."
Sirens wailed in the distance.
More organized response.
Impressive.
He took another step toward the city.
Then paused.
He extended his senses fully for the first time since descending.
The spiritual field of the region unfolded before him.
Layers upon layers.
Hidden compartments.
Suppressed signatures.
Shielding formations disguised as architecture.
Energy flowing beneath roads like invisible rivers.
He smiled.
Small.
Genuine.
"So you survived in the end."
Far away, in the highest tower of the financial district, a quiet alarm blinked red.
Inside a glass conference room, several executives froze mid discussion.
On a hidden screen, a spiritual density graph spiked violently.
The reading was wrong.
Impossible.
One of them adjusted his glasses.
"…That level of pressure hasn't existed in recorded data."
Another whispered.
"Is it foreign."
A third, older than the rest, pale.
"…No."
He stared at the waveform.
Perfect.
No fluctuation.
No instability.
Just overwhelming balance.
"…Whatever it is, it's not fluctuating at all," the elder murmured. "It's complete."
Silence filled the room.
Back on the road, the Martial God began walking.
He ignored the sirens.
Ignored the shouting.
Ignored the fear.
His attention was on the skyline.
On the hidden lattice of qi beneath concrete and steel.
His lips curved slightly.
"Show me what you became."
And for the first time in three hundred years
He felt curious.